Zombie walk was some pretty badass fun. XD Hilights of the day:

- Blood fight in the Manor backyard!!
- Walking past the Expensive Shops near the mall (eg Tiffany's) and watching the shop owners close their doors in a hurry, and the customers stare with a mixture of amusement and horror as we threw ourselves against said doors.
- The 'non zombie' with the 'shotgun' trying desperately to gun us down, while we mimed getting hit and then just kept... coming... until he gave up trying to shoot and just turned tail and fled. XD It was a Great Zombie Moment.
- Zombie Where's Wally meeting up with Zombie Where's Wally... girl.
- Listening to the cries of 'BRAAAINS! BRAAINS!' turning into cries of 'BEEEER! BEEEEER!' when we passed a bottle-o, and the utter bewilderment of the guy at the counter.

Doubt.

( It's so easy. )

Bearcat!

Anyway, I was going to fill this post with More Stuff, like the crazy badass dream I had the other night, but that will have to wait for another time when Tyrone hasn't called dibs on the computer for most of the night.

THEREFORE I will simply leave you with some of the stuff kids say while riding ponies.

"What's your favourite animal?"
"....PURPLE."

"What's the best animal you've seen today?"
"Batman."
"...really. How many batmans have you seen?"
"Oh there's only one."

After trying to get a name out of the kid for about five minutes of stubborn silence:
"BECAUSE MY FAVOURITE IS MASHED POTATOES AND SAUSAGES."

"What's your favourite animal?"
"Tigers and dinosaurs."
"Awesome! What's the best kind of dinosaur?"
"My batman shirt."

...what is it with the goddamn Batman!?

Tell-tale fingertip stains
My guilty morning pleasure
Over-the-fence mulberries

So, after having the trip postponed several times and having my weekends suspended in space/time for the last month or so, it looks like I am ACTUALLY FINALLY properly going to Melbourne tomorrow! Whee! I think this is the first time I'll have ever officially gone on a 'business trip', haha. Provided all goes well (and I don't see why it shouldn't, I just don't like jinxing things I guess? Silly superstitious me...) then I will return with NEWS.

I'm in a relatively okay headspace at the moment, despite the exquisite sads of my previous post. I've been dwelling on death a great deal lately, and am feeling oddly zen about the whole thing... in a very strange sort of way, I think the whole experience was somewhat theraputic for me.

Ranger's been living with us for a year now, and he continues to be the greatest little dog ever. This makes me profoundly happy.

And, as has become the norm at the moment, I fill my spare time with ( Star Wars drawings. )

Car CD player has been broken for months.
Computer currently not accepting CDs (note to self: ask the Dr how this can be rectified).
Actual CD player whose purpose in life is to do nothing but play CDs, for some hellish reason, is refusing to acknowledge CDs placed inside it.
TV currently no use as a music player because, (and fair enough,) husband wants to use it as a TV.

DAMN IT I JUST WANT SOME MUSIC IN MY LIFE. I can't believe how anxious this is making me.

(Now some MOAR fiction, because it just kind of happened.)
( ... )

I should have stopped them. Why didn't I speak out? I could say I didn't want to draw attention to ourselves... but the first shot had already been fired. I could say that it happened too fast, that I was too shocked to react in time... but that would be a lie. I had time. I could say that I didn't think it would make a difference... now, that might be true. I don't know that anything I could have said would have stayed any hands.

But I should have tried.

I still have such a long way to go.

Funny how tightly they cling to the bad things. The slip-ups, the mistakes, the poor decisions... well, what they see to be a poor decision. Hah! I wasn't willing to risk the alternative, no way will I ever try to walk that line again. If I'd stuck around... tried to listen to their excuses, or even worse, their indifference... I don't know that I could have kept my temper in check. If they touched any of the bodies, if they stole from any of those poor souls who just wanted out... I wouldn't have. I had to get away.

Stupid. Mad. Reckless. Yeah, maybe it was. But if I ever find myself in the same situation, I'll do exactly the same thing. Only next time around, at least I'll have tried to stop the shooting. Maybe that will make the difference.

A couple of posts back said my next post would begin to chronicle the visit of the Yeener in Oz. And then I posted about cheetahs. So, NOW I actually begin putting up some of the pictures from the epic month-or-so-that-wasn't-long-enough-anyway. Starting with Bribie Island Sunrise Morning, which was neither the first nor last thing we did, but undoubtedly the prettiest. It was a really nice day.




( As usual, more beneath cut. )

One of my co-workers wished for a leopard painted somewhat like the rhinosaurus I did for the office. So, I painted lots and lots of spots.



I think I basically like it.

( And then I also churn out the Star Wars drawings. )

So I wasn't at work for two weeks, I had this thing called a 'holiday'. The first week we spent more time in our car than we did in bed, the second week I was SIIIIICK. So I'm not exaaaactly feeling 'refreshed and rested' as one is supposed to feel after a holiday, but nonetheless we did manage to do lots of fun stuff.

The time in the car was, more specifically, spent driving to Canberra and back. There was enormous doubt amongst everyone who is in any way familiar with my car that we'd actually make it... but WE DID. HELLS YEAH, Falafel wins at the game of driving. Oh, god so much driving. All the driving.

Anyway, photos are generally more fun than long winded explanations of what we did (also, the main purpose of this trip was visiting Tyrone's family, which probably won't be entirely apparent with the selection of photos I have to share), so yeah, lots of photos.




Nyer! I went on holiday and you didn't!

( And a buttload more... )

Holy crap that was a lot of pictures.

Some notes about the trip that were not covered via imagery:

- WTF is with metal seats on the public toilts in NSW? HOLY FREAKING COLDNESS, BATMAN.
- New South Wales seems to care a heck of a lot about reducing speeding. It was quite good, actually. I like being warned extensively when there are cameras around. It made for an interesting observation driving between the states; in NSW, every other billboard is about reducing your speed. Once you cross the border into QLD? DON'T GET STDI'S!!!
- The city of Ryde, in Sydney, is... um, no fun? Seriously, they have signs up around the park telling you EVERYTHING you're not allowed to do in its lovely city. Including, but not limited to: Annoying people, landing light aircraft on the oval, and drinking without permission (they did not clarify WHERE, am I to assume you need the council's permission to have a bottle of wine over dinner in your own house???).
- WHERE THE HELL ARE THE PETROL STATIONS. Now, I'm used to petrol being very easy to find the moment you pull off the highway. NOT SO IN SYDNEY. We spent, like, an HOUR crawling the streets of some random suburb looking for fuel and subsequently finding our way out after getting horribly, horribly lost.
- There's something to be said about Sydney's method of building roads. Mountains? Going OVER the mountains? Hell no, we're going to CARVE STRAIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF IT. Those roads would be a pain in the ass to widen.
- Ranger has now walked through a Canberra shopping center, been down an escalator, sat under the table in a fancy Canberra cafe, been through the tourist center at Jindabyne, and had his name called over the loudspeaker at the National War Museum.

Wow I think that's it for now.

Next photocrunk will involve the Epic But Too Short Visit of the Yeener.